


Spooktober

by callboxkat



Category: Sanders Sides, Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Cute, Family Shenanigans, Fluff, Gen, Halloween, M/M, October, Virgil loves October
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-13 11:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21243551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callboxkat/pseuds/callboxkat
Summary: As far as Virgil is concerned, Halloween is a month-long event. He's right.





	1. The First Night of Spoops

It was the evening of September 30th. The sun had long since gone down, and darkness had settled over the neighborhood like a blanket. The sky above glittered with stars. Occasionally, a car would wind its way through the streets, lit by glowing yellow lamps, but most of the inhabitants of the houses below were already asleep in bed, or soon would be.

Virgil was not one of these people. It was nearing midnight, and he had no intention of going to sleep any time soon.

The young man, ever the night owl, was laying on his stomach on his bed, the lights off and his eyes closed, nodding to the music that played in the oversized headphones that covered his ears. He silently mouthed along to the words, one hand tapping on the bedspread. It was the closest he ever came to dancing. He really liked this song.

Just as the song reached his favorite part, though, the music cut off. Virgil stilled, his eyes opening.

And his favorite remix of “Spooky Scary Skeletons” began to play. The one whose video has a man dancing with a pumpkin on his head. You know the one.

Virgil shrieked, bolting upright in bed. He scrambled out of his blankets, sending himself sprawling to the floor with a loud_ thump_ before he immediately shot back to his feet.

“IT’S OCTOBER!!!” the Halloween-loving emo yelled, turning on the lights and throwing his bedroom door open with a _bang! _that rattled all the windows in the house.

He ran to a door down the hall and pounded his fists on it. “Roman!” he yelled, not hearing (read: ignoring) his brother’s protests from within about the time and the fact that Virgil’s shriek had already been more than enough to wake him up.

The door opened, and Virgil quickly pulled back his fists to avoid smacking his brother in the face, something that he may or may not have done on a previous occasion. He finally removed the headphones from his ears, although he could still faintly hear the spooky song from where they sat around his neck.

Roman’s sleep mask was pushed up into his hair, pushing the normally artfully arranged locks up in an amusing way. He pouted at his brother, clearly unhappy. “It’s the middle of the night, Jack Smellington.”

“Exactly It’s midnight!” Virgil said, practically bouncing up and down. “It’s officially October! You get Dad and Pa, I’m getting the decorations!”

“What, _now?_”

“Yes, now!” Virgil spun and made to race away, only to run straight into his Pa, who had walked up behind him. He was in his pajamas and a slightly crooked pair of glasses.

“Virgil, why are you and Roman awake at this hour? You have school tomorrow.”

Roman sighed dramatically, leaning on the door frame. “It’s October.”

Their Pa’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Ah,” he said. “Of course. The first day of—what was the term?” He pulled an index card out of the sleeve of his pajama shirt. “The first day of ‘Spoops’.”

Roman blinked. “Um… sure. Yeah. Spoops.”

Virgil grinned triumphantly. His dads had learned long ago not to get in the way of him and Halloween.

“So, I take it we are decorating now?”

Virgil nodded.

“I’ll get your dad.” He turned and made his way back down the hall.

Virgil ran to get the Halloween decorations. Behind him, Roman sighed, resigned to his fate, and followed after.

Of course, Roman didn’t seem all that unhappy when, an hour later, he and Virgil were putting stickers in the windows while a Halloween playlist ran in the background, their Pa was arranging a life-sized skeleton in a chair in the entryway (complete with lab coat, goggles, and, of course, pumpkins), and their Dad was in the kitchen, the smell of the pumpkin pie he was baking filling the house with a sweet, cinnamon-rich aroma.

Maybe they would all be a little tired the next day. Maybe, just maybe, they would call out sick from school and work, and _maybe _they wouldn’t actually be sick. But that would be their secret.

Virgil finished his half of the sticker and pulled a string of purple, bat-shaped lights from the box of decorations. He untangled them and started stringing them along the banister. Roman, meanwhile, had started dancing to one of the songs, and Virgil’s laughter drew their dad in from the kitchen, who started trying to both dance along and take pictures of the scene on his phone.

Virgil loved October.


	2. The Witchiest Witch to Ever Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt "What do you mean it broke?"  
Sent by @skeletonsloverockcandy on tumblr, from a prompt list by @idreaminelectricblue
> 
> Virgil has a costume malfunction on his favorite holiday of the year, and he goes to his brother for help.

Roman was sitting in his room, <strike>eating </strike>sorting through the candy that his dads had picked up for himself and his brother, Virgil, to hand out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween, which just so happened to be tonight.

It also just so happened to be Virgil’s absolute favorite holiday of the year by far. Seriously. The dude cared more about it than Christmas, or his own _birthday_.

Roman thoughtfully popped another candy into his mouth. (Its wrapper was bent, which obviously meant it was too substandard to be saved for the children). He supposed Virgil’s affinity for the holiday wasn’t exactly surprising—the aesthetic certainly bled out into his year-round wardrobe, for one thing—although he took it to a bit of an extreme.

Virgil had woken them up practically at the stroke of midnight on the first of the month to get them all to decorate the house, dance to Halloween music (at least, Roman and Dad danced), and to bake pumpkin pie. And sure, that was a lot of fun, but… overkill, much?

They’d also spent much of the month doing suitably ‘spoopy’ activities: going to haunted houses, browsing for new decorations that may or may not take up a permanent residence in Virgil’s room after the holiday, watching Halloween or horror movies (Dad did not participate in the latter), and of course, putting together their costumes.

Virgil’s Halloween costume was a labor of love. He was going as a witch—as their Dad had called it, the Witchiest Witch to ever Witch. He was just going to be handing out candy, but Virgil was going all out. Virgil had hand-sewn—_hand-sewn_—a cape, hat, and shirt for the costume, decorated a broom that he got from a second-hand store and artfully arranged the bristles, and gotten help from their Pa to put together a smoking cauldron for him to hand out candy from.

Roman was honestly impressed. (Not that he’d ever tell Virgil that. He’d never hear the end of it.)

Roman looked through the rest of the candy, not seeing any more that he could get away with stealing based on their sub-standard quality. He sighed, took one last handful—payment for his services, obviously—and got up to return the candy to the kitchen.

A loud knocking on the door scared Roman out of his skin. He may or may not have shrieked. A little bit.

“Roman!” a voice called through the door.

Roman winced, set down the large bowl of candy, and approached his door.

“I didn’t take _that _much—” he excused as he opened the door, only to break off as he was met with his terrified brother Virgil. He was already dressed in his witch outfit. As soon as he saw Roman, he started talking in a voice much faster and about an octave higher than usual.

“Roman, I don’t know what to do, it just _broke_ and I don’t have time to—”

“Wait wait wait wait,” Roman said, reeling back. This wasn’t about him stealing the candy. “Calm down, Wicked Witch of the Pest. What do you mean, it broke?”

“My broom!” Virgil cried. “I was getting it out of my closet and I must have bumped something because everything just_ fell_….” He pulled the broom into view. It was snapped, the two pieces ending in jagged splinters, and the bristles he’d spent so long getting just right were all bent to one side.

“Oh,” Roman said, staring at it in surprise. “Can you just… not have a broom?”

Virgil stared at him as if he’d just suggested cancelling Halloween altogether.

“So, that’s a no…?”

“Help me,” Virgil begged. “Pa’s not home, and I don’t know what to do, and you know Dad….”

Virgil had a point there. Their Dad would probably just make it worse, even though he always meant well. And, Virgil _would _owe him one…. Roman sighed, then opened his door wider.

“Alright, enter my workshop. Let’s see what we can do.”

Together, with the aid of Roman’s art supplies and eye for detail, they were able to mend Virgil’s broom. They managed to hide the breaks with paint, glue, and a bit of modelling clay, and the bristles were bent back into place. A few of them had snapped, but a little bit of glue, tape, and carefully matched paint hid that, too. Of course, the broom wasn’t quite like before, but a stranger would never know it had ever been broken.

Roman was quite pleased with how it turned out. And, probably more importantly, so was Virgil. He didn’t even tell their dads that Roman had stolen about a fifth of the Halloween candy.

That night, as he handed out candy to eager trick-or-treaters, Virgil was the witchiest witch to ever witch.


End file.
